Our New President...and His Marketing Skills

The link below is to an excellently written article published on November 5, 2008 in Advertising Age about what marketers can learn from Obama’s campaign. I will let you read the entire article on your own, but I’ve pulled out some key notes that I believe are important about advertising and how he won this historic election.

http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=132237

Nov. 4, 2008, will go down in history as Obama takes office as the first African American President. It’s great to see we are continually evolving and race isn’t a factor anymore, but let’s take a look at what Obama was up against.

Al Ries states the obvious in his article. “Obama is a relatively unknown man. Younger than all of his opponents. Black. With a bad-sounding name. Consider his first opponent: the best-known woman in America, connected to one of the most successful politicians in history. Then consider his second opponent: a well-known war hero with a long, distinguished record as a U.S. senator. It didn't matter. Barack Obama had a better marketing strategy than either of them. "Change."

Against all these odds Obama won. “Change” is what Obama said all along. He was simple and consistent in all his speeches, debates and advertising. It was all about “change” and that’s what we need as Americans right now. His competitors’ went back and forth on what they stood for, as you will see from the article, that is until they jumped on the Obama bandwagon and tried to better Obama’s slogan by saying they could do better than change.

Lesson 1 according to Al Ries, "Better" never works in marketing. The only thing that works in marketing is "different." When you're different, you can pre-empt the concept in consumers' minds so your competitors can never take it away from you.

I believe this is one of the many reasons Obama won. Sure, we all know we need change but Obama said it and it was simple. He stuck with it and he made us believe in it/him after hearing it over and over. According to Al Ries, Lessons 2, be simple and consistent. It was too late when the other candidates grabbed onto “change”, it was a last ditch effort to steal from their competitor. Obama stood out early with a simple, consistent message that inspired people like myself to believe in him.

When I think about how advertisers are doing this I think about the following brands : Nike, Milk, M&M and American Express... I bet without thought you could name their slogan. Their brands have a consistent message and presence, they seem important and reliable – as Obama’s campaign slogan “change” did. Then think about other big brands like Taco Bell, Wendy’s and Budweiser – they have a ton of slogans you can’t just name one, where’s the consistency? Then there are those with awful slogans like “Denny’s. A place to sit and eat.” – gee thanks Denny’s, that so original and really makes me want to come in and order off your picture menu? WTF? So Obama had it right with “change” – it was simple, consistent, different and strong enough to have American’s believe in him.

Sure, Obama had a lot of money to spend on this campaign, record amounts actually. But he still did it right and was patient with his messaging. I think of companies in the past that I worked on their ad campaigns that did it all wrong (to remain anonymous) But they made the fatal mistake many companies do and Ries points this out in his article, “They jerk from one message to another, hoping for a magic bullet that will energize their brands. That doesn't work today.” When the business isn’t doing well it always gets blamed on the advertising...well do you think about your message? Really, do people care about all the hoopla and dancing around the actual product, no they care about why you’re different, how you’re different and the benefit you are going to give them (and of course price). Will you stand behind your message like Obama made us to believe he will? Only time will tell as he takes office, but I’m excited to see what “change” is and how he plans to accomplish it. It’s history in the making folks...